Some thoughts on “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared 4- Technology”

This is the fourth and most recent Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, in which our three heroes learn about technology. I’ve been doing posts this week about the first three episodes and my thoughts on them, check those out if you haven’t yet, staring about episode 1.

So, I think it’s obvious that this one has about the same level of “messaging” as episode 3 (“Love). Right off, we can see the three main characters get distracted from their current task of figuring out what the biggest thing in the world is, to giving away all their information to a computer. Their distraction runs deeper from there as they begin to indulge infinitely in digital style, digital dancing, and tiny little flashes of information contained in graphs. Their ability to focus on and complete their current task has been hopelessly compromised by the computer.

And what is this sentient computer like? He is obnoxious, jumping in with noises and flashy but meaningless sights uninvited. He makes big promises of his intelligence, but in fact only performs operations that require mathematical computing power, but not so much actual thoughtful reasoning. He, like a social network website, demands more and more information from his “users” (who quickly become his slaves) before he will give them a shred of usefulness. He is seductive, drawing his “users” in with flashy data and series of slightly-varying pictures.

I take this episode to be a warning against the intelligence- and work-corrupting effects of over-reliance on technology. Your computer is a tool, use it to achieve your goals. Do not let it control you, the person who belongs to the same species that created that computer and all its predecessors. Focus, do not let yourself be distracted by what is unimportant but flashy. Don’t forget who is in charge, because if you do forget, before long it sure as hell won’t be you!

That’s my interpretation, anyway. 🙂

Also, the CGI in this video is great, the creators seriously keep outdoing themselves! I love the computer puppet too, the way his hand is a cursor (in the real world somehow; that’s a little creepy) and how he has that auto-tuney voice, and so many things on his monitor. The production values really do keep climbing, And that music, so catchy. I can’t wait for episode 5.